This thesis sought to advance understanding of the politics of workplace reform, explaining the respective roles of management and employees and how they relate. The literature on workplace reform usually argues that reform is predicated on greater workforce participation in managerial decisions. More specifically, different approaches to workplace reform can be aligned to different forms of participation. Thus quality management can be associated with direct forms of participation, institutional workplace reform may depend on representative forms, and best practice may require a combination of both. This thesis uses empirical evidence to explore this alignment between the different approaches to workplace reform and forms of participation. The period chosen for empirical study is approximately 1985-1992 - an era of rapid innovation in workplace reform for Australian manufacturing. Three workplaces were chosen for intensive study from automotive component manufacturers because that industry was itself a laboratory for workplace reform and also because these firms exemplified different approaches to competitiveness and reform. Three approaches to workplace reform - quality management, institutional workplace reform, and best practice - were distinguished to capture the range of Australian practice at that time. Similarly two approaches to workplace participation were distinguished - direct and representative - to reflect the range of observable practices at that time and to represent competing philosophies. Direct participation illustrated an approach founded in managerial context of the political status quo, whilst representative forms were considered to permit a pluralist shift of power to enable employees to manage in place of management. The three case studies depict companies sharing the competitive crisis of their industry. From this stems the impetus for workplace reform. At this point the firms diverged in their choice of competitive strategies for workplace reform. The case studies reveal, at the superficial level, a match between the chosen approaches to workplace reform and forms of participation. Basically, quality management is associated with direct employee participation, institutional workplace reform with collective bargaining and representative consultative committees, and best practice with both. However when the implementation of reform and participation are examined this match becomes less significant. One firm, Auto Air, achieved highly effective outcomes in both reform and participation. Another firm, Auto Electrical, failed in both. The thesis concluded that the relationship between forms of participation and reform is less significant than the effective implementation of policy. Unitarist or pluralist approaches to power distribution count less than managerial capacity to integrate successive reform initiatives and their commitment to workforce participation hi change.